Former Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director Peter Orszag and NYU Law School Professor Barry Friedman discuss the future of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), how it will impact the country's health-care system, and why the Supreme Court ruled as it did.

While serving as OMB director last year, Dr. Orszag, now at Citigroup, argued in Foreign Affairs magazine that the ACA would repair the nation's health-care system and improve the country's fiscal situation: "In the end, there is no credible path to reducing the long-term fiscal imbalance in the United States other than directly addressing high-cost cases in health care. The best bet, then, is to implement and improve the provider-value provisions in the health legislation, not abandon them."

Controversial environmental scientist Bjorn Lomborg discusses his latest Foreign Affairs article, "Environmental Alarmism, Then and Now: The Club of Rome's Problem—and Ours," and the Rio+20 summit, arguing that the world is focusing too much on environmentalism and climate change, and not enough on confronting the lack of economic growth in the developing world.

On Tuesday, May 22, Ivo Daalder, the U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO, will offer his take on the Chicago summit. The immediate question is whether the alliance can withdraw its forces from Afghanistan while leaving behind a stable country that can stave off the Taliban. The long-term question surrounds the future of NATO as a guarantor of international peace and security.

Daalder, in the March/April issue of Foreign Affairs, writes that the organization's successful mission to help liberate Libya proves that the alliance can still be an essential source of stability, but adds "to preserve that role, NATO must solidify the political cohesion and shared capabilities that made the operation in Libya possible."

With concerns swirling over the prospect of another global economic slowdown, Ruchir Sharma, head of emerging markets at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, questions the current consensus view, which is still bullish on the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) and bearish on the West. Sharma, the author of "Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles" and the May/June Foreign Affairs essay "Bearish on Brazil," argues against analyzing emerging markets under catch-all acronyms. He points out, for example, that Brazil's growth is dependent on a shaky premise: high prices for commodities like oil, coffee and iron ore. Meanwhile, the dismal image of Europe overlooks fiscally responsible countries like Poland and the Czech Republic, whose policies, institutions, and private sectors could enable them to become real growth economies. Sharma will discuss which nations will serve as pockets of future economic strength, and what this all means for the global economy, including the big powers of the West.

Executives from NBC News, CBS News, ABC News, and CNN discuss the future of the news media, including the importance of international news coverage, the rise of online news, and the effects of technology on the industry.

This meeting was made possible by the generous support of the Ford Foundation.

Executives from NBC News, CBS News, ABC News, and CNN discuss the future of the news media, including the importance of international news coverage, the rise of online news, and the effects of technology on the industry.

This meeting was made possible by the generous support of the Ford Foundation.

Executives from NBC News, CBS News, ABC News, and CNN discuss the future of the news media, including the importance of international news coverage, the rise of online news, and the effects of technology on the industry.

This meeting was made possible by the generous support of the Ford Foundation.

Robert Danin, CFR's Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies, and Eugene Rogan, faculty fellow and university lecturer in the modern history of the Middle East at University of Oxford's St. Antony's College, analyze the reactions of the United States and Europe to the Arab uprisings.

This session was part of a CFR symposium, Implications of the Arab Uprisings, which was made possible by the generous support of Rita E. Hauser, and organized in cooperation with University of Oxford's St. Antony's College.

Robert Danin, CFR's Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies, and Eugene Rogan, faculty fellow and university lecturer in the modern history of the Middle East at University of Oxford's St. Antony's College, analyze the reactions of the United States and Europe to the Arab uprisings.

This session was part of a CFR symposium, Implications of the Arab Uprisings, which was made possible by the generous support of Rita E. Hauser, and organized in cooperation with University of Oxford's St. Antony's College.

Robert M. Danin and Eugene Rogan with Gideon Rose assess the American interventions in countries like Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt. They say the American response was a 'reactive' one while Europe remained 'confused.'

Today's troubles are real, but not ideological: they relate more to policies than to principles. The postwar order of mutually supporting liberal democracies with mixed economies solved the central challenge of modernity, reconciling democracy and capitalism. The task now is getting the system back into shape.

With the United States formally marking the end of the Iraq war, all U.S. combat troops are scheduled to withdraw by December 31. Listen to former National Security Council official Meghan O'Sullivan and correspondent Ned Parker, who reported from Iraqand has just returned from the region, together with Foreign Affairs Editor Gideon Rose discuss the road ahead for Iraq.

This video is part of a special Council on Foreign Relations series that explores how 9/11 changed international relations and U.S. foreign policy. In this video, Foreign Affairs Editor Gideon Rose argues that the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States "unleashed U.S. power on the world." Rose says this resulted "not just in the Afghanistan campaign, but in the Iraq campaign eventually, in the Global War on Terror, and in the massive deployment of American resources, in power projection, and in an activist world role that wouldn't have been conceivable without the immediate trigger of a threat in the previous decade." He says the end of this decade saw a "chastened, less hubristic" U.S. attitude and a country confronting a host of domestic challenges.

Gideon Rose discusses President Nixon and Henry Kissinger's attempt to extricate the United States from the Vietnam War even as the local combatants continued to struggle -- and says President Obama should try to do the same in Afghanistan.

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2014 Annual Report

Learn more about CFR’s mission and its work over the past year in the 2014 Annual Report. The Annual Report spotlights new initiatives, high-profile events, and authoritative scholarship from CFR experts, and includes a message from CFR President Richard N. Haass.Read and download »